On the Participation and Care of Older Adults in Spaces of the City of Buenos Aires

Abstract

The City of Buenos Aires (CABA) is the oldest in the country with 22% of people aged 60 and over, and the policy for older adults is based on the active aging model based on social participation. Objective: to inquire about the participation and care of users and those responsible of the Day Centers Program, in two areas of the City. This Program has 31 Centers distributed in several communes and the majority of attendees are women due to the over-representation of women in the City. Method: it was based on a case study through an exploratory and qualitative design. Two focus groups were held with participants and in-depth interviews with heads of two of the Centers. Results: the attendees positively value the workshops offered as the possibility of participating among peers. The heads of the Centers put a lot of effort into their tasks trying to accompany and contain the attendees. It would be necessary to intensify training in human resources from within the Program to comprehensively address the problems of old age. Although the care issue appears as one of the objectives of the Program, a gap is observed between the formal proposal and the discourse of the interviewees, since in practice this concept is referred to tangentially.